


The Two Body Problem

by alamorn



Category: Dark Matter (TV)
Genre: Bodyswap, Gen, Mission Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:40:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25499992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alamorn/pseuds/alamorn
Summary: Being on the crew of theRazameans dealing with new and exciting problems every day. This time, the problem is Transfer Transit.
Relationships: Five | Das & Six | Griffin Jones
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8
Collections: Juletide 2020





	The Two Body Problem

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Isis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/gifts).



> Set nebulously in season 2, following up on One's murder, post-Jace Corso death.
> 
> Hope you enjoy, Isis!

In her time on the _Raza_ , Five had seen a lot of things go very, very wrong. A doubled up Transfer Transit was among the least surprising of them. 

At the best of times, waking up in a Transfer Transit tube was like waking up in a coffin. This time, with a second, smaller body squashed uncomfortably against hers, the sensation was somehow even more claustrophobic. She opened the tube, fumbling more than she was used to, but the process was always disorienting, and then, in the cool light of the transfer room, she stopped. The small body, whose elbow had been dug hard into her side, was her own, and it was blinking back at her, as evidently shocked as she was. She blinked at herself, then looked down at her hands, and found them huge and dark.

"Six?" she said, tentatively, jumping a little at hearing his voice when she spoke.

Her own mouth opened, her own eyebrows knit together, Six's familiar expression unfamiliar on her features. "Huh," he said.

"Who transferred us?" she asked, as if he would have any more idea than she did. Really, she just needed to talk out loud. "And where are we?"

"I'll figure that out while you figure out how to get us back in our bodies? I don't trust things to go right the other way if they didn't in this direction," Six offered and Five nodded. She settled in at the computer station and started to work while Six slid out of the room.

Sometime later, he came back. Five started at the sight of her own green hair out of the corner of her eye, like catching a reflection in an unexpected spot. Her typing had been slowed by the unfamiliarity of Six's hands, huge and not quite clumsy. She was making typos left and right.

"We're on Faramis Moon," he told her. "Closest land to the space station. Managed to get through to the Android, so the crew's updated."

She looked up at him when he stopped. It was a pregnant sort of pause. "Faramis," she said leadingly. "Would we happen to be in the CoreLactic base?"

"We would," Six said.

"And Two wants us to do some damage while we're here?"

"Took the words right out of my mouth," Six said.

"Okay," she said. "They'll make sure our bodies aren't in any trouble?"

"Three's on it," Six said, and laughed when she looked dubiously at him. Herself. Him. This was _weird._ "He'll keep us safe."

"He'll _try,"_ Five acknowledged, but she would have felt better if it was Two. Or Nyx. Or Four. It wasn't that she didn't trust Three, it was just that, well, he lost a lot of fights.

"It's not the sort of opportunity we'll get again," Six said. "But if you want to go back, I can do it alone."

"And what?" she asked, getting up (and up and _up)_ from her chair. "Ask the hard drives to wipe themselves? Come on."

"Physical destruction might not be as stylish but it still works," he said. "You know where we're going?"

"Yeah, I pulled the blueprints while I was waiting. The server room's this way."

\--

The third time Five hit her head, Six sighed at her with her own voice and said, "Try not to give me brain damage, please."

"It's a clone," she said defensively. "No lasting damage. Probably. And I'm _trying._ You're, like, three times my size and it's taking some adapting. You should really be worrying about what I'm doing to your fingers."

There was a long pause, and then, sounding deeply tired, Six said, "What are you doing to my fingers?"

"Nothing permanent," Five said, and laughed uncomfortably. Six's fingers were so much _bigger_ than she was used to. It wasn't really her fault that she'd jabbed them so many times. In her own body, she never cut herself on hardware. As it was, she kept having to wipe Six's (huge) fingers against his (huge) chest to keep the blood from making any connections she didn't want it to. Previously, she'd mostly noticed his size when she was hugging him or hitting him. She'd never thought about going through life with that much mass. It made crawling into vents and working on circuit boards _much_ harder.

"That was probably about half as reassuring as you meant it to be," Six said.

"I know I work well under pressure, but this is the wrong kind," Five told him. 

"Okay," Six said, his amusement strange in her voice. "I'll be quiet."

"Thanks," Five said and worked quietly until the wires sparked and she heard the door slide open. She started trying to wiggle her way out, but Six's stupid, huge shoulders got stuck. She sighed explosively. "I hate your body."

"Believe me, you're not alone in disliking the situation."

"Can you..." she had to take a breath and roll her eyes at the indignity of it. "Can you pull me out?"

Six was good enough not to laugh. He grabbed her by the ankles and pulled. And pulled. She moved very little. "Kid, you need to start lifting weights or something."

"If we're stuck like this much longer, I give you permission," she said, grunting when one yank pulled her stomach into the lip of the vent. 

"That's not going to happen," he said, grunting himself as he yanked at her. "I have the utmost faith in you."

He gave another firm pull and she slid out, landing hard on the ground a few inches below and hitting her head once more. "That bit of brain damage is on you," she told him. Looking at her own face was so _weird._

"I take full responsibility," he said.

Despite the fact that he was now in her body -- and she really did look like a pushover, no wonder people always thought she was the weak link in the crew, maybe she did need to start lifting weights? No, that was silly, no one thought she was a pushover for long -- he went through the door into the server room first. He cleared the area before waving her in, and took up a position by the door while she went to work.

By the time she was done, the lights were flickering from power surges and there was a wild hammering on the door. She'd maybe fried the panel behind them and it maybe wasn't going to open until they took a battering ram to it. She smiled at the smoking server stack. 

Six had that deliberately calm voice he always used in stressful situations. She liked how it sounded, coming out of her mouth; with his cadences, she sounded old and wise. "So when you were figuring out how to get our bodies back, what did you find?"

"Turns out," Five said, "that the last time two people were in the same pod they came through in one horrible mushed up body and the receiving location just shot them, so actually we lucked way out."

"Is that so," Six said faintly. She sympathized. She'd had to take a lap around the room at the idea herself. Thankfully, there hadn't been any pictures.

"Yeah, but! They ended up back in their bodies, no problem. So we're fine if these bodies get destroyed."

"You're done here?" Six asked.

"Yeah, you got a gun?"

He nodded, pulling it out of his waistband. "I, uh. I've never shot myself in the head before."

"Do you want me to do it?" she asked.

"Nah, I got it," he said.

\--

Five blinked awake squashed in a Transfer Transit tube, uncomfortably mashed between the curved roof and Six's side. A moment later, before she could open the tube, he gasped to consciousness. When they spilled out of the tube, Three was waiting, a body on the floor a few feet away.

"Do you remember anything?" Five asked and Six shook his head.

"That's too bad," Three said. "I heard you guys got swapped. I was dying to hear how that worked." His face changed in the way that meant he was listening to Two, and he said, "Boss lady wants us out of here. Apparently, you caused a ruckus." He wiggled his eyebrows, and beside her Six huffed out a laugh.

When they got back to the ship and tapped into the feeds, it turned out "ruckus" was an understatement. Five traded a smile with Six. "Good job, partner," he said, and she knocked companionably against his shoulder.

One's killers might have evaded them once again, but at least they'd cost CoreLactic a _hell_ of a lot of money.


End file.
